I made my four work-outs this week!  Yay me! I am pretty sore tonight, it might qualify for Tylenol before bed.  We've been back from vay-cay (vacation) for 1 week tonight.  Routines are settling back in, all the laundry's done, etc, etc.

I was sore yesterday too, but I keep reminding myself that this is good.  Plus the exercise seems to open my lungs better than any other bronchitis treatment.  My trainer has me moving to body-weight exercises, also known as resistance exercises.  I wasn't familiar with the term but I sure remember the exercises - squats, lunges, push-ups, crunches, etc.  They do seem to make you more evenly sore than the machines or free weights. They are nice too because they require nothing but your own body.  Can't very well give the excuse "I don't have time to go to my own body"! 

  (READ MORE)

Thanks to En Vogue for those lyrics. We got back from vacation late Friday night but I'm still feeling my way back to my "new normal".

10 days in New Mexico in a travel trailer with kids (ages 4 & 1) - it went really well!  Yes, that's shock you see in my punctuation!  We went places and saw people and ran, ran, ran.  The weather was beautiful, highs hovering around 80.  They have gotten a lot of rain and some Dolly-effect flooding this summer, so it was quite lush by New Mexico standards.

Unfortunately, I didn't replace my workouts as I had hoped I would.  Read that as "hoped, but didn't make definite plans for ahead of time." I need to remember that for the future.  On the plus side, I was much more active than usual.

  (READ MORE)

thadz

This last weekend was a busy one. Between soccer, church, and work we were not able to find the time to do our regular Sunday grocery shopping.

So come Monday I knew I would have to pick up lunch instead of bring it with me to work. For the last 3 months I have completely fallen off the Weight Watchers wagon. I have gained some weight and frankly, I am not in the mood to care right now. Life has been a struggle lately and unfortunately my weight loss drew the short straw.

  (READ MORE)

So the flub is really starting to get to me. That is, the flub that's making my pants feel tight, my shirts feel smaller and all that other good stuff that comes with extra weight.

Driving home tonight from work -- I have a one-hour commute now instead of roughly 10 minutes -- I started thinking about when exactly I could fit some exercise into my daily routine. Between getting up at 5:30 a.m. so I can leave by 7 a.m. and often not getting home until after 6 p.m. and taking care of three kids and completing a bunch of freelance work and taking care of a new house there's not much time in the day for exercise.

For a long time I've enjoyed exercising first thing in the morning. I used to say that if it didn't happen as soon as I got up it wasn't gonna happen at all. And when you live in the desert in the summer, exercising outside in the morning is really the best advice!

  (READ MORE)

I received a comment on my post from yesterday that really struck a chord with me. The reader commented that their parents had died from diabetes and that they would die from it too.

When I read that I got choked up because honestly, I feel the same way.

Sure I plan on fighting the fight and checking my blood as often as I am supposed to. Of course I will continue to work on my A1C and losing weight. I am not giving up on life at all. But, in the back of my mind I “know” that diabetes is going to win in the end.

Will it be heart disease, kidney failure, or a stroke? Maybe something else. Who knows?

The fact is that with all the steps I take to live healthy the odds are against me. Diabetes has the upper hand which makes me sad and angry at the same time.

  (READ MORE)

No, not THAT kind of change of life!  I was laid off from my job 10 days ago.  Boy, talk about a life change!  I am doing a little contract work, so I don't know what to call my current position.  "Stay at home Mom" has such negative connotations and I find "Full-time Mother" offensive because I've been a full-time mom since my son was born, regardless of my employment status.  

My 4 year old has gone from 9-10 hour days at a daycare center, to 3 hours at a small local preschool.  The rest of the time he's with me.  My 14 month old is with me 24/7, or so it seems.  My husband does step up so I can maintain some other adult relationships. What those will be and how often I'll get a night off remain to be negotiated.

  (READ MORE)